Monitoring physiology and behavior using Android in phobias

In this paper, we present an Android-based system Application - AWARE - for the assessment of the person´s physiology and behavior outside of the laboratory. To accomplish this purpose, AWARE delivers context dependent audio-visual stimuli, embedded into the subject´s real-world perception, via marker/vision-based augmented reality (AR) technology. In addition, it employs external measuring resources connected via Bluetooth, as well as the smartphone´s integrated resources. It synchronously acquires the experiment´s video (camera input with AR overlay), physiologic responses (with a dedicated ECG measuring device) and behavior (through movement and location, with accelerometer/gyroscope and GPS, respectively). Psychological assessment is heavily based on laboratory procedures, even though it is known that these settings disturb the subjects´ natural reactions and condition. The major idea of this application is to evaluate the participant condition, mimicking his/her real life conditions. Given that phobias are rather context specific, they represent the ideal candidate for assessing the feasibility of a mobile system application. AWARE allowed presenting AR stimuli (e.g., 3D spiders) and quantifying the subjects´ reactions non-intrusively (e.g., heart rate variation) - more emphatic in the phobic volunteer when presented with spider vs non phobic stimulus. Although still a proof of concept, AWARE proved to be flexible, and straightforward to setup, with the potential to support ecologically valid monitoring experiments.